Picture 1 of 1
Picture 1 of 1
The Idols of Isis: From Assyria to the Internet, Tugendhaft 9780226737560 New-,
US $35.30
Condition:
3 available
Shipping:
Located in: NY, United States
Delivery:
Estimated between Sat, Jun 8 and Thu, Jun 13 to 43230
Includes 5 business days handling time after receipt of cleared payment.
Returns:
Payments:
Special financing available. See terms and apply now- for PayPal Credit, opens in a new window or tab
Earn up to 5x points when you use your eBay Mastercard®. Learn moreabout earning points with eBay Mastercard
Shop with confidence
Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing.
eBay item number:315106451219
Item specifics
- Condition
- PublishedOn
- 2020-10-22
- Title
- The Idols of Isis: From Assyria to the Internet
- ISBN
- 9780226737560
- Publication Year
- 2020
- Type
- Textbook
- Format
- Trade Paperback
- Language
- English
- Publication Name
- Idols of Isis : from Assyria to the Internet
- Item Height
- 0.3in
- Item Length
- 8.5in
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Item Width
- 5.5in
- Item Weight
- 5.6 Oz
- Number of Pages
- 136 Pages
About this product
Product Information
In 2015, the Islamic State released a video of men smashing sculptures in Iraq's Mosul Museum as part of a mission to cleanse the world of idolatry. This book unpacks three key facets of that event: the status and power of images, the political importance of museums, and the efficacy of videos in furthering an ideological agenda through the internet. Beginning with the Islamic State's claim that the smashed objects were idols of the "age of ignorance," Aaron Tugendhaft questions whether there can be any political life without idolatry. He then explores the various roles Mesopotamian sculpture has played in European imperial competition, the development of artistic modernism, and the formation of Iraqi national identity, showing how this history reverberates in the choice of the Mosul Museum as performance stage. Finally, he compares the Islamic State's production of images to the ways in which images circulated in ancient Assyria and asks how digitization has transformed politics in the age of social media. An elegant and accessibly written introduction to the complexities of such events, The Idols of ISIS is ideal for students and readers seeking a richer cultural perspective than the media usually provides.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
ISBN-10
022673756x
ISBN-13
9780226737560
eBay Product ID (ePID)
25038892777
Product Key Features
Publication Name
Idols of Isis : from Assyria to the Internet
Format
Trade Paperback
Language
English
Publication Year
2020
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
136 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
8.5in
Item Height
0.3in
Item Width
5.5in
Item Weight
5.6 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
N9103.T84 2020
Reviews
This fascinating and impassioned opuscule earned immediate media notoriety for the author, theoretician of comparative politics, teacher at Bard College in Berlin and also a descendant of a Jewish family from Baghdad. Written in reaction to the video released by the Islamic State in February 2015 which depicted the destruction of the Assyrian reliefs in the Mosul museum, it questions the political meaning of the image, citing in the prologue relevant comparisons, a relief from Nineveh showing Assyrian soldiers hammering the statue of a defeated king, or the biblical episode of Moses and Aaron about the Golden Calf. . . .the author encourages us to go beyond this terror in order to realize that all political life is based on shared images: to be free citizens, any image is good to think about., "The succinct and reader-friendly prose is accompanied by a series of images. . .from ancient temples to modern museums, intersecting always with cultural and political developments in and between the West and what was once unabashedly referred to as the "Orient.", The Idols of ISIS comes to us at a timely moment, as scholars are sounding the alarm about how the internet delivers certain images to our lives, and as the scholarly and museum worlds begin to reckon more fully with their colonial pasts., With an argumentative arc stretching from idols to museums to videos, this book will be valuable to a variety of readers, including Assyriologists, archaeologists, ancient and contemporary historians, and scholars in media studies. Tugendhaft offers something unique by discussing the destruction of images by ISIS through the lenses of political theory and comparative history., Tugendhaft's book breaks images--and therefore it also makes them. He taps images together, using the ISIS video to sound out the hollowness of contemporary Western culture, from the internet to the United Nations to the war on terror., In Idols of ISIS , Aaron Tugendhaft, a descendent of Iraqi Jews and scholar of the ancient Middle East, examines the significance of a video clip which had made the rounds online in 2015. It had showed ISIS militants smashing ancient artefacts using sledgehammers and drills in Mosul Museum, engaging in a modern-day iconomachy, purging 'heresy' from view and existence. Tugendhaft lingers on this specific video because, he argues, it not only shows a quasi-ritualistic demolition but also highlights the correspondence between imagery and politics. He finds in the clip a resonance, ranging from Biblical times to the sectarian turmoil of post-2003 Iraq. In his book, he also explores why the location of Mosul's museum matters, and discusses the apparent paradox in the militants' decision to record the events with a videocamera., This is where this little book hits home in the most unexpected ways. Americans will be reminded of the ongoing debates around statues to Confederate soldiers or Generals., There are reasons and evidence for why 'statues are too terrified to sleep at night lest they wake up as ruins (67),' as Tugendhaft demonstrates expertly., An elegant meditation on the conflict of images and its necessary role in politics. Looking at the lives of Mesopotamian monuments from Ashurbanipal to ISIS, Tugendhaft shows us how the stories they tell about the building and destruction of images are full of surprising similarities and address common philosophical questions. He argues that both iconoclasm and humanist universalism, for example, represent an impossible desire to depoliticise social life by monopolising the world of images., ""What are we to do with this complicated destruction and iconoclasm, which both draws us in and repels us? I can't think of a better and timelier resource to tackle these immense questions than [ The Idols of ISIS ].", [Tugendhaft's] rich yet readable book puts ISIS' smashing of ancient sculptures into historical and political context. . . . [it] is extremely relevant to America's current debates about public sculpture, especially with regard to the role of violence in this debate., On February 26th of 2015, Islamic State terrorists went into the museum of antiquities in Mosul and destroyed ancient Mesopotamian art. Not content with the mere act of demolition, they also made and distributed a videoof their action. For Aaron Tugendhaft, seeing a still image from the video immediately brought to mind a strikingly similar image created in the very same area, but thousands of years earlier. The still image looked like a scene of iconoclastic destruction sculpted in a relief for Sargon II's palace in the city of Khorsabad, from the eight century BCE. For Tugendhaft, the uncanny juxtaposition of images across millennia suggested something like an eternal question about the role of images in the political world in the Middle East, and in political life simply speaking. Is a world without images a possible basis for a politics of the enlightened, as iconoclastic religious leaders sometimes suggested? Or, if not, if images were instead a necessary part of political life, how could we avoid forcing the society to live under the permanent shadow of one dominant group's untrue, fantastic dogma? The book is an extremely original attempt to address such fundamental questions about the role of art and images in politics, while at the same time engaging other more ephemeral but quite pressing contemporary problems related to global politics and technology., The Idols of ISIS marks a solid scholarly contribution to the field of Middle Eastern studies, specifically by demonstrating the function of images, and the function of their destruction, in the construction of political spaces. The brevity and legibility of Tugendhaft's prose makes the book ideal for usage in higher-level undergraduate courses, or as a companion text in graduate seminars. . . . The Idols of ISIS is a book that is worth visiting., A book with a... [broad] import... His analysis, divided into three chapters, stretches beyond the Mosul museum to examine the long history of iconoclasm in human civilization--from image smashing in the Assyrian Empire, to medieval political philosophy, to the ways images are modified and circulated on the Internet today., Idols of Isis i s an engaging piece of cultural criticism, a passionate meditation on the tension between those seeking ideological purity in society and those seeking what he calls pluralistic grey zones of public discourse.
Copyright Date
2020
Topic
Middle East / Iraq, Ancient / General, General, Islam / General
Lccn
2020-007574
Dewey Decimal
700.4820218
Intended Audience
Scholarly & Professional
Dewey Edition
23
Genre
Art, Religion, History
Item description from the seller
Business seller information
Value Added Tax Number:
- GB 724498118
Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing.
eBay item number:315106451219
Shipping and handling
Item location:
NY, United States
Ships to:
Worldwide
Excludes:
Barbados, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Ireland, Libya, Martinique, New Caledonia, Reunion, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Venezuela
| Shipping and handling | Each additional item | To | Service | Delivery*See Delivery notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free shipping | Free | United States | Economy Shipping (USPS Media MailTM) | Estimated between Sat, Jun 8 and Thu, Jun 13 to 43230 |
| Handling time |
|---|
| Will ship within 5 business days of receiving cleared payment. The seller has specified an extended handling time for this item. |
| Taxes |
|---|
| Taxes may be applicable at checkout. Learn moreLearn more about paying tax on eBay purchases. |
Return policy
| After receiving the item, contact seller within | Refund will be given as | Return shipping |
|---|---|---|
| 30 days | Money Back | Buyer pays for return shipping |
Refer to eBay Return policyopens in a new tab or window for more details. You are covered by the eBay Money Back Guaranteeopens in a new tab or window if you receive an item that is not as described in the listing.
Payment details
Payment methods
Popular categories from this store
Seller feedback (513,623)
-***1 (417)- Feedback left by buyer.
Past month
Verified purchase
I will not be buying from this seller again. Ad description "very good". Seller did not package and ship hardcover book with the precautions as I expected. As a result, the book arrived damaged.
t***j (150)- Feedback left by buyer.
Past month
Verified purchase
Had to repurchase the book because the first one arrived badly damaged during transit. I contacted seller 3 times with no response but went ahead and recorder. Seller finally replied after I repurchased the second copy thanking me for my order. So had to buy this book twice and pay shipping twice. Second order arrived in good shape but packing still thin.
p***o (249)- Feedback left by buyer.
Past month
Verified purchase
Received a different cover than pictured, but everything else was great. Condition is good for the cost.
Follow-up from: p***o- Feedback followed up by buyer.- Feedback followed up by buyer.
Will follow store for other great deals and to do business again.
Product ratings and reviews
More to explore :
- Computers and Internet Education Textbooks,
- Nonfiction Internet Paperbacks Books,
- Nonfiction Books in English Fiction & Internet,
- Nonfiction Internet Fiction & Nonfiction Books,
- Nonfiction Internet Paperbacks Books in English,
- News Magazines,
- New Yorker Magazines,
- New Magazines,
- New Yorker News Magazines in English,
- News Weekly Magazines